What it is
The theory that made terminology a subject rather than a by-product of engineering. It grew out of Eugen Wüster's work on standardizing the vocabulary of electrical engineering, and it asserts four things at once: that the concept comes before the designation, that terminology is a field of its own rather than a branch of lexicology, that a resource is organized by concept system rather than by alphabet, and that the purpose of the work is standardization.
Those commitments hold each other up. If the concept comes first, the search runs from concept to designation, and a resource built that way must be arranged systematically because there is nothing else to arrange it by. If designations are assigned rather than inherited, they can be assigned well, and the criterion is one concept to one designation. The current edition of ISO 704 still carries the ordering in its own architecture, treating reality and language, then concepts, then definitions, and only then designations.
The nearest neighbouring record is the one on onomasiology and semasiology, which describes a direction of search available to anyone. This one is the stronger claim that terminology must always travel in that direction, and standardize what it finds.
Where the authorities stand
Almost every modern account of the theory presents it as five principles: an onomasiological starting point, clearly delineated concepts, intensional definitions, one term permanently assigned to one concept, and synchronic study. That list is Temmerman's reconstruction, set out in the first chapter of her 2000 monograph, and not a numbered list in Wüster's own text. Attribute it to her. Every later school attacks the theory in the form she gave it.
Candel and Humbley, in the same 2022 survey, argue that the caricature does Wüster an injustice. Candel shows him distinguishing the norm as it ought to be from the norm as it is, and conceding the second to descriptive linguistics; Humbley treats the conflation of the two as a misapprehension in the reception rather than a position Wüster held. The canonical manual concedes more than its reputation suggests: Felber states that the requirement that one designation should not carry several concepts cannot be met in practice, because a subject field holds vastly more concepts than a language holds word stems, and that only the other half of univocity is achievable by standardization.
The institutional history is genuinely disputed. A terminology committee was created within the international standardizing federation in 1936; ISO's own register gives 1947; the committee was reactivated in 1951 and operational in 1952. The sources do not reconcile, and a record that picks one date is pretending.
Consequences for translation
The theory is the reason terminology work looks the way it does, and its weaknesses are visible in the same places.
- Concept orientation is what makes a term record reusable. A record keyed to a concept survives a change of source language; a record keyed to a string does not.
- Univocity is a design goal, not a description. Where a term bank shows two designations both marked standardized, the standardizers ratified a split rather than resolving it, and neither can be flagged as an error.
- The onomasiological order is worth imposing on the working method even where it is not imposed on the resource. Reconstructing the concept before searching the target language reaches equivalents that share no form with the source.
- Synchrony is a simplification with costs. A designation whose history explains its shape cannot be described by a theory that declines to look backward.
Examples
EN>FR
- Source: earthing / grounding
- Target: mise à la terre
- Comment: The Canadian federal terminology bank records both English forms as standardized by ISO with the electrotechnical commission, against a single French designation. One concept, two ratified English designations: the rule is broken not by careless usage but by the standardizers, who accepted the British and American forms rather than eliminating one, in the field the theory was built to serve.
EN>ES
- Source: electric shock
- Target: choque eléctrico
- Comment: Term and definition standardized together by ISO, with the French form standardized alongside. The definition takes the classical intensional shape, a physiological effect produced by current passing through a human body. Where a concept is sharply bounded and safety critical, the method delivers what it promises, although the Spanish entry already carries a second designation, sacudida eléctrica.
FR>EN
- Source: travaux sous tension
- Target: live working
- Comment: The title of one part of the international electrotechnical vocabulary, a publication whose whole purpose is fixing designations. The two forms are structurally unlike, a noun with a prepositional phrase against an adjective with a gerund, and neither is a rendering of the other. The concept is held constant while each language builds its designation from its own resources, and the same part carries equivalents in ten further languages.
References
- Wüster, E. (1931). Internationale Sprachnormung in der Technik, besonders in der Elektrotechnik. Berlin: VDI-Verlag. Second, enlarged edition, Bonn: Bouvier, 1966.
- Wüster, E. (1968). The Machine Tool: An interlingual dictionary of basic concepts. London: Technical Press.
- Wüster, E. (1979). Einführung in die Allgemeine Terminologielehre und terminologische Lexikographie, 2 vols. Vienna and New York: Springer.
- Felber, H. (1984). Terminology Manual. Paris: Unesco and Infoterm, section 1.05.
- Temmerman, R. (2000). Towards New Ways of Terminology Description: The sociocognitive approach. Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice 3. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, chapter 1, pp. 1 to 38.
- Candel, D. (2022). "General principles of Wüster's General Theory of Terminology." In P. Faber and M.-C. L'Homme (eds), Theoretical Perspectives on Terminology, Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice 23, 37 to 60. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- Humbley, J. (2022). "The reception of Wüster's General Theory of Terminology." In the same volume, 15 to 36.
- ISO 704:2022. Terminology work: Principles and methods, 4th edition. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization, clauses 4 to 7.
- IEC 60050-195:2021 and IEC 60050-651:2014. International Electrotechnical Vocabulary, parts 195 and 651. Geneva: International Electrotechnical Commission.
- TERMIUM Plus. Ottawa: Translation Bureau, Public Services and Procurement Canada, entries for earthing and electric shock.